SWITCH off your cell phones, orders the officer. Seconds later, there’s a splinter in the silence on the 16th floor when a woman’s cell goes off. The nervous assemblage of 160 immigrants ready to raise their right hand and swear the ‘Oath of Allegiance’ breaks into titters. Comic relief descends like nimbus all around.
“Your journey with us is over,” continues the man from the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). “You’re now an American by choice and before I hand out your naturalization certificates, here’s a message from your new president.”
The video rolls up a very smiling, warm and friendly face of George W. Bush. He welcomes “fellow Americans” telling them that America is united across generations by “grand and enduring” ideals — the grandest being that “everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance and that no insignificant person was ever born.”
America, says the most powerful man on earth, has “never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by principles that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens.”
No rhetoric here, Bush means business and better breed of citizens newly ordained.
Hope shines immigrants’ eyes as they affix their gaze on the mini screen — strapping and old; white, black and brown, men and women who have left their countries of birth behind, their families and friends, to bear allegiance to the American flag.
It’s the longest journey. Not so much in time, but in the wait to secure America’s promise. Many fall through the cracks and give up and go back home, others hang in stoically, vowing to live another day.
“Welcome to the joy, responsibility, and freedom of American citizenship ... we hold beliefs beyond ourselves ... when this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government programme can replace it ... when this spirit is present, no wrong can stand against it ... God bless you and God bless America”, Bush’s message ends.
Tears? yes, some eyes well up in the audience.
Yasmeen, very pregnant and very worn, came to America some eight years ago, with her husband, whose sister — an American citizen — sponsored them for a Green Card so long ago that they don’t even care to remember. “We were starting life in Karachi as a couple then — I was young with so many dreams; Athar was so handsome and full of drive.” When at last, the Green Card came, three little ones had arrived and Yasmeen and Athar had grown ‘old’ waiting ... gone was that feisty youth, that romance for life.
“It feels like a journey of thousand years, we’ve been in a time box,” they say, guardedly clutching the piece of paper that they have waited for since time immemorial.
Saba, another Pakistani in shalwar kameez with a hijab looks disappointed. She has flunked the American history and government test — mandated for all. “My interviewer asked me which is the 50th state. I forgot. He asked me who was America’s first president, I named the wrong guy. By then, I was nervous as hell and after some more boo-boos ... he failed me, said I should study for the test and then come after three months. I am so angry!”
Her husband, a storeowner, has scraped through. “I never studied for the test!”
People who come for the interview/test rarely fail. But I know of one man, Sal from Kosovo, who came to the US 20 years ago and has failed the test only seven times: “They asked me to write a sentence in English — something about a boy drinking milk — and they failed me because I had spelt ‘milk’ wrong. I always write this as ‘melk’. They are crazy, these Yankees!”
Sal’s wife Sasha, a co-manager with Sal of an apartment building, is much smarter. She became a US citizen when she first applied for it seven years ago.
To become a citizen, one must have had a Green Card for five years and lived in the US for half of that period, never being outside the country for more than six months at a time. In the citizenship form, the applicant has chronologically to catalogue his life for last five years — his jobs, marital liaisons, abodes, activities, travels ...
Should he lie or fudge any information, the security check that FBI conducts after he’s been fingerprinted for citizenship, is pulled up to show he’s a liar!
End of ever getting citizenship! And in more serious cases like felony, deportation proceedings are promptly put in process.
The United States of America has a short fuse for immigrants found to have committed a crime.
It’s not like Pakistan, where a cheat gets away by flashing more than one passport or wangle different ID cards to bamboozle the law. Gosh, there’s no shortage of counterfeit traitors back home but in America the identity system is fake proof. Everyone has a Social Security (SS) number — whether you’re born here or a naturalized citizen or are a permanent legal resident, commonly known as a Green Card-holder.
Your SS number sticks to your identity for life, and is punched in each time you apply for a driver’s license, a job, a mortgage, a business loan or buy a car on credit, or admitted to a hospital, visit your doctor, open a bank account or go to college ... just about anything.
As long as you obey the law, you’re fine. Break it and all hell is let loose!
During the citizenship interview, your interviewer asks you four specific questions: Have you ever been arrested? Have you ever had any links with the communist party? Have you ever worked for a terrorist organization? Are you guilty of polygamy?
Obviously, America does not want you if you have been a jailbird; a communist; a terrorist; or a polygamist.
Thousands across America adopt it as their home, each new day. “You have to get into the system to appreciate this great country”, beams a Brit, who has lived in the US for decades as a permanent legal resident and has now decided to become an American.
“I know I have taken the Oath of Allegiance to renounce England,” he says ruefully. “I’ve sworn to support the American Constitution and the laws of the land; even bear arms on its behalf and perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law.”
So help me God! He grimaces.
Canadian Peter Jennings, a famous name in ABC news, decided to become an American after living here for 39 years. He waited a lifetime because Elizabeth, his mother, was “pretty anti-American.” Nine years after her death, the illustrious son sat the citizenship test in Manhattan along with 50 others. He passed but not before commenting: “You’d be a fool if you went and took the exam without studying!”
He passed the citizenship test but is now facing a bigger test — that of life and death. Recently the 66-year-old was told he has lung cancer that may be in an advanced stage. Nearly 10 million Americans “are living with cancer ... I have a lot to learn from them, and ‘living’ is the key word,” says Jennings.
Becoming a citizen is not a breeze, as most will vouch. “It’s a long, lonely and often a painful road, paved with thorns ... you want to know why? Then we’ll tell you our tale if you have the heart to hear,” say Nadia and Nadir, two of the 160 new Americans sworn in that day. Watch for the ballad of NN in this space next week.
SWITCH off your cell phones, orders the officer. Seconds later, there’s a splinter in the silence on the 16th floor when a woman’s cell goes off. The nervous assemblage of 160 immigrants ready to raise their right hand and swear the ‘Oath of Allegiance’ breaks into titters. Comic relief descends like nimbus all around.
